WASHINGTON — A Texas congressman has become the sole Lone Star Republican to sign on to the latest DREAM Act, a bipartisan bill that would protect from deportation children brought to the country illegally.

But Arlington Rep. Joe Barton, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said he has no plans to also support a discharge petition that House Democrats are circulating in hopes of forcing a vote on the measure.

Barton is also a co-sponsor of a Republican-led bill introduced by Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo that, similar to the DREAM Act, would grant Dreamers legal protections and a path to citizenship.

Rep. Michael Burgess (left), R-Texas, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, walked to a meeting with fellow House Republicans earlier this month as work in Congress resumed after the August recess.

(J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

“They’ve been educated here, they’ve grown up here, and in most cases they don’t have family in their country of origin to go back to, so why not take advantage of the investment we’ve made in them and help them become productive adults here in the United States?” Barton said Tuesday.

The news comes as Congress contemplates the fate of roughly 800,000 young immigrants — including 124,000 Texans— granted protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced plans to phase out the program, giving Congress six months to develop a legislative solution.

Democrats are now hoping to force the House to vote on the 2017 DREAM Act, sponsored by Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., with a discharge petition requiring 218 signatures.

The effort is seen as a long shot, because it requires several Republicans to buck their party leaders.

Earlier this month, House Speaker Paul Ryan named three Texas Republicans to an informal working group on the DACA issue: Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul of Austin, Round Rock Rep. John Carter and San Antonio Rep. Will Hurd.

Texas Democrats, along with Barton, are uniformly supporting the DREAM Act.

Barton said he expects more Texas Republicans to back legislation that would grant Dreamers legal status.

“Most of the Republicans in the delegation understand that we’re a diverse state with a growing Hispanic population and that we’ve been educating undocumented children for 20 years now,” he said.

He pointed to his son, Jack, a sixth-grader back home in Texas.

“His class is probably over half Hispanic, and some of those children probably are undocumented,” he said. “They pledge allegiance to the same flag he does every morning.”

In 2014, Barton was preparing to introduce a bill that would have included a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrant children and a mechanism to give legal status to adults in the country illegally who have not committed other crimes.